Sturgess busier than ever, with ’21’ his newest film

Monday

Mar 31, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 31, 2008 at 6:11 PM

Interview with British actor Jim Sturgess, who plays the lead in the new movie "21."

Ed Symkus

Baby-faced British actor and musician Jim Sturgess had been making the rounds of small film and TV work for the past eight or nine years, when director Julie Taymor decided he would be just right for a lead in her Beatles musical “Across the Universe.”

Since that film knocked him up a few rungs on the recognition ladder, he’s been busier than ever — with a feature part in “The Other Boleyn Girl” and a lead in “21,” the based-on-fact story of the MIT blackjack team that cheated a couple of million dollars out of Las Vegas in a card-counting scheme.

What are your thoughts on so many things happening at once in your career?

It’s completely chaotic and exciting and I’m enjoying every minute of it. It’s certainly something I could only have wanted but never expected to have.

Did you know the book or the story that the film is based on?

Not at all. Like anything I was just sent a script, I was told that [director] Robert Luketic was interested in meeting me for this project called “21.” It was explained to me that it was inspired by this true story about these college students who went to Las Vegas. Normally, any time someone says, “This is based on a true story,” your ears kind of slightly prick up a bit — there’s an extra sprinkle of interest when it’s based on things that happened in real life. I read it, and it was an exciting roller coaster journey that just keeps going right till the end, and I thought it was a project I wanted to get involved with.

Blackjack isn’t very exciting to watch. How did you and the director make it interesting?

No, watching a game of cards is not the most exciting thing cinematically. We would spend hours just lifting cards and moving chips, and Robert was saying, “Trust me, guys, just keep going.” He would shout, “Jim, would you just blink for me.” It was hard with all of this mad stuff going on around us, but he created something where you feel like you’re inside the game or insides the players’ heads, with the tension of turning the card over, or the sound effect that goes with that.

There’s a scene where Laurence Fishburne, playing a Vegas security guy, smacks you around a bit. What was that experience like?

He would just come in and I never knew what he was gonna do. For most of it I had my hands tied behind my back, and he’s a giant guy. I remember one time sitting there, tied up, and he was kind of sizing up his shot, working out how far he had to reach, and he said, “Jim, you don’t mind if I give you a little tap, do you?” And I said, “No, that’s cool. Do what you have to do.” And he really hit! But he’s kind of skilled in that. He kept saying don’t worry, and I kept thinking that he’s Morpheus [in “The Matrix”].

How did life change for you after “Across the Universe?”

In many ways, completely, and in many ways, not at all. I’ve always been working — in music, and independent films and TV. But it took me up to another level. Julie Taymor made that happen for me. It got me known to an American agency, whereas before I was just in England doing small-budget films. It became everything I’ve dreamed about. I was in England, I was perfectly happy, I was writing music. I was in a band — The Dilated Spies — for a long period of time, and that was a huge part of my life, but that finally came to an end. I was also acting while I was in the band, and doing some really embarrassing stuff — I was just trying to get work. I think the in last acting job I had before “Across the Universe” I was running naked through a pub, covered in petrol, with one line. So I was thinking about maybe doing another career. When the band split up I didn’t know where to take myself, and then the audition for this Beatles musical came up.

Is it true that you’re going to do a Broadway musical of “Spider-Man” with Julie?

Julie is going to direct it. But all that’s happened so far is that she phoned me and Evan [Rachel Wood] last year and asked if we would come and help, playing around, work-shopping it. So we went, and it was a fun thing to do. We knew that Bono and Edge were gonna be there because they wrote all the music. So we worked with those guys for two weeks, playing around with this idea. There was a time when I was singing away on a song, and Bono was behind me doing the backing vocals and the oohs and ahhs. If it’s offered to me, it’ll be a big decision to make. With theater, you’re attached to it for a long period of time. But it’ll be an amazing thing, whether I’m involved with it or not.

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